Robert Bloch Papers
By William Gillard
By William Gillard
(Intro: Bill Gillard, an English professor at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, recently traveled to Laramie, Wyoming, to research the voluminous collection of Bloch papers/archives, housed at the University of Wyoming. Below, he recounts his visit and provides numerous, fascinating samples of what he found.)
My name is Bill Gillard, and I teach at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, located in a small city not far from Weyauwega, the tiny town where the Blochs lived during the 1950s—the town where Psycho was born. Two years ago, I got a phone call from a Canadian television producer who was looking for a “Wisconsin voice” to be an academic talking head for his documentary on Ed Gein and the phenomenon of Psycho. I instantly agreed — I didn’t mention that this “Wisconsin voice” grew up in New Jersey and New York City! Doing the documentary was a blast, and I am happy with the way my parts—mostly in episode three—turned out. You can find The Lost Tapes of Ed Gein on MGM+ and Amazon Prime. MGM+ generally has a free one-week trial, so there’s nothing to pay if you don’t want to.
Prepping for that interview took weeks, and the more I learned, the more I loved Bloch’s work. I had been reading, teaching, and writing on the pulp era in speculative fiction, but I just hadn’t done much with Bloch.
Well, that has changed—a lot!
I am deep into a literary study of the arc of his career that has become several conference papers and, shortly, a book that I am aiming to finish before the summer really gets rolling. An important part of my project was a drive out to Laramie, Wyoming, where the Robert Bloch Papers are archived at the American Heritage Center on the campus of the University of Wyoming. When I visited, there was a big exhibit on Stan Lee, another twentieth-century luminary whose papers are housed at the AHC. The staff was professional and helpful, especially Roger Simon whose job it has been for the past year or so to organize the many, many boxes of Bloch’s records into something preservable and useful to scholars. We had the chance to chat often during my three days in the archive, and I learned a lot about some of the really cool stuff that Bloch donated to them.
Big picture, this Bloch collection has a ton of letters that he received over the years from luminaries such as Isaac Asimov, Joan Crawford, Robert Heinlein, Fritz Leiber, and many, many others. There are also convention programs and memorabilia, including a towel promoting the release of Psycho II and the “Bloch Block”: his portrait engraved on a hunk of stone.
My favorite parts of the collection are the many, many works in progress. As a creative writer myself, I am always interested in the composition and revision processes of others. For Bloch, the gap between the first drafts of stories he wrote for television and what was eventually broadcast was sometimes immense. Other times, a nearly intact first draft made it to the screen.
Most interesting to me were the notes Bloch wrote onto each item explaining briefly the item’s significance to him. Some were funny and others full of gratitude, while a few told of some frustration with an aspect of the process. Stories of his that are engrained into my mind—the three Star Trek episodes, for example—really come to life when you see the many steps along the way. After Bloch handed the first draft of “What Are Little Girls Made Of?” to Gene Roddenberry, he received back a note that Roddenberry started by says, I really love this script, but… and then followed with ten pages—single-spaced—of notes and suggestions for revision. Placing the correspondence and revisions into sequence as I did shows how Roddenberry created the Star Trek ethos early on, how the now-familiar characters became established and coherent, and how the diversity of writers each was able to make episodes that are distinctively Star Trek.
Bloch kept many promotional items, especially for his films. My favorite is one of Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh that shows a double image of Perkins—his reflection in the motel window. There are many print ads for Bloch’s film and television projects.
There is a photocopy of the contract that Bloch signed with Shamley Productions, the signature that altered his life profoundly—for better and for worse. It was haunting to go through page by page to see all of the rights that Bloch surrendered and the relatively small amount of money he received in return.
I was excited to see on the archive’s 448-page “Finding Aid” that there are a lot of letters in the collection. Unfortunately, among the hundreds of letters, there were only a handful that were written by Bloch. To find the letters Bloch sent, it will be necessary to visit other library archives. For example, based on the letters at the AHC, there are possibly Bloch letters at Boston University’s Michael Avallone archive. That’s another trip for another day.
You arrive at the American Heritage Center which is just across the street from the football stadium, and park in a tumbleweed-scattered parking lot. You go up the stairs to the fourth floor and meet some of the friendliest people you’ve ever met. You request items from the Finding Aid and they bring them up from the first floor archive to you. Then you dive in. Really, there’s nothing to it. If you are ever in Laramie, it is a great way to spend some time!
Bill Gillard
University of Wisconsin Oshkosh
My name is Bill Gillard, and I teach at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, located in a small city not far from Weyauwega, the tiny town where the Blochs lived during the 1950s—the town where Psycho was born. Two years ago, I got a phone call from a Canadian television producer who was looking for a “Wisconsin voice” to be an academic talking head for his documentary on Ed Gein and the phenomenon of Psycho. I instantly agreed — I didn’t mention that this “Wisconsin voice” grew up in New Jersey and New York City! Doing the documentary was a blast, and I am happy with the way my parts—mostly in episode three—turned out. You can find The Lost Tapes of Ed Gein on MGM+ and Amazon Prime. MGM+ generally has a free one-week trial, so there’s nothing to pay if you don’t want to.
Prepping for that interview took weeks, and the more I learned, the more I loved Bloch’s work. I had been reading, teaching, and writing on the pulp era in speculative fiction, but I just hadn’t done much with Bloch.
Well, that has changed—a lot!
I am deep into a literary study of the arc of his career that has become several conference papers and, shortly, a book that I am aiming to finish before the summer really gets rolling. An important part of my project was a drive out to Laramie, Wyoming, where the Robert Bloch Papers are archived at the American Heritage Center on the campus of the University of Wyoming. When I visited, there was a big exhibit on Stan Lee, another twentieth-century luminary whose papers are housed at the AHC. The staff was professional and helpful, especially Roger Simon whose job it has been for the past year or so to organize the many, many boxes of Bloch’s records into something preservable and useful to scholars. We had the chance to chat often during my three days in the archive, and I learned a lot about some of the really cool stuff that Bloch donated to them.
Big picture, this Bloch collection has a ton of letters that he received over the years from luminaries such as Isaac Asimov, Joan Crawford, Robert Heinlein, Fritz Leiber, and many, many others. There are also convention programs and memorabilia, including a towel promoting the release of Psycho II and the “Bloch Block”: his portrait engraved on a hunk of stone.
My favorite parts of the collection are the many, many works in progress. As a creative writer myself, I am always interested in the composition and revision processes of others. For Bloch, the gap between the first drafts of stories he wrote for television and what was eventually broadcast was sometimes immense. Other times, a nearly intact first draft made it to the screen.
Most interesting to me were the notes Bloch wrote onto each item explaining briefly the item’s significance to him. Some were funny and others full of gratitude, while a few told of some frustration with an aspect of the process. Stories of his that are engrained into my mind—the three Star Trek episodes, for example—really come to life when you see the many steps along the way. After Bloch handed the first draft of “What Are Little Girls Made Of?” to Gene Roddenberry, he received back a note that Roddenberry started by says, I really love this script, but… and then followed with ten pages—single-spaced—of notes and suggestions for revision. Placing the correspondence and revisions into sequence as I did shows how Roddenberry created the Star Trek ethos early on, how the now-familiar characters became established and coherent, and how the diversity of writers each was able to make episodes that are distinctively Star Trek.
Bloch kept many promotional items, especially for his films. My favorite is one of Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh that shows a double image of Perkins—his reflection in the motel window. There are many print ads for Bloch’s film and television projects.
There is a photocopy of the contract that Bloch signed with Shamley Productions, the signature that altered his life profoundly—for better and for worse. It was haunting to go through page by page to see all of the rights that Bloch surrendered and the relatively small amount of money he received in return.
I was excited to see on the archive’s 448-page “Finding Aid” that there are a lot of letters in the collection. Unfortunately, among the hundreds of letters, there were only a handful that were written by Bloch. To find the letters Bloch sent, it will be necessary to visit other library archives. For example, based on the letters at the AHC, there are possibly Bloch letters at Boston University’s Michael Avallone archive. That’s another trip for another day.
You arrive at the American Heritage Center which is just across the street from the football stadium, and park in a tumbleweed-scattered parking lot. You go up the stairs to the fourth floor and meet some of the friendliest people you’ve ever met. You request items from the Finding Aid and they bring them up from the first floor archive to you. Then you dive in. Really, there’s nothing to it. If you are ever in Laramie, it is a great way to spend some time!
Bill Gillard
University of Wisconsin Oshkosh
(Click any photo for larger image. All photos courtesy of Bill Gillard)
American Heritage Center - UoW
Design for Strait-Jacket (1)
Contract (first page) for sale of rights to Psycho
|
Stay Tuned for Terror ad
Design for Strait-Jacket (2)
Star Trek teleplay case history
|
The Psychopath ad
Scene from Psycho
Scene from Strait-Jacket
|
Psycho II promotional towel